KARACHI, Oct 31: Police arrested 13 people for setting ablaze two vehicles after one of them hit a passerby near Nagan Chowrangi late on Saturday night.
A total of six vehicles were set on fire by people at various places in the city on Saturday. The vehicles were torched following some fatal road accidents in which they were allegedly involved within the jurisdiction of Taimuria, FB Industrial Area and Buffer Zone police stations.
Taimuria and F.B' Industrial police dispersed the angry mob and did not arrest any of the protesters while Buffer Zone police on the directives of New Karachi Town Police Officer arrested 13 people from Nagan Chowrangi.
New Karachi TPO Shafi Rind told Dawn that all of the arrested people were picked up from the troubled spot and they were involved in burning vehicles. "They had taken law into their hands and the vehicles, which were set on fire, were not responsible for any accident," he said.
Buffer Zone police had arrested a total of 37 people from the spot. However, some of them, either children or elderly men, were released later.
The police also released some youths after allegedly receiving illegal gratification from them which ranged from Rs5,000 to Rs7,000 on account of Eidi, the people who had been released said.
One of the victims said: "I was passing through the area when the riots broke out. I was trapped and the police arrived there, who stuffed me into a mobile van and took me to the police station. They let me off after receiving Rs5,500," he alleged.
Police, however, booked 13 people in an FIR, who would be produced before a court on Monday. Having failed to arrest errant drivers, the police started picking up those who were protesting against such drivers.
Since the beginning of Ramazan, more than a dozen vehicles had been set on fire by furious people on involvement of such vehicles in fatal road accidents. Most of the vehicles were either trucks or dumpers.
DIG Traffic Yameen Khan has prohibited the entry of dumpers in the city from 6am to 11pm with immediate effect. The decision has been taken in the wake of recent traffic accidents which claimed several precious lives, a police spokesman said on Sunday.
He said that the traffic police had already launched a drive against dumper drivers for over speeding and driving without licence to check accidents.
Quoting police statistics, he said dumpers had taken 12 lives in the city since January. The dumpers, which were primarily used for carrying construction material including sand, clay, concrete and other items, were also a major cause of traffic jams on roads. He said that they usually did not pay for wear and tear of roads to the government of Sindh, as they got registration from Balochistan.